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Dr. Josef's Little Beauty
By Zyta Rudzka. 2021
A Holocaust story as fascinating and compelling as it is terrifying and puzzling—a book about aging and war crimes, pain…
and pride.In the middle of summer, omnipresent heat radiates as a group of elderly people are remembering their youth. The story focuses on two sisters, Leokadia and Helena, who live together in a retirement home not far from Warsaw. These are not ordinary stories they are sharing because both of them were imprisoned as children in Auschwitz during World War II. At the center is Helena, who at the age of 12 was saved from extermination by the notorious doctor Josef Mengele, the real-life Nazi officer and physician who was known as the &“angel of death&” for the experiments he conducted on prisoners, including twins and siblings.This is a story both provocative and disturbing about the fear that lingers in victims. Was the sisters&’ relationship with the executioner a desperate attempt to save their lives, or perhaps they harbor a hideous pride and sense of superiority over other prisoners? Rudzka&’s extraordinary writing turns unsettling questions about memory and survival into art.The Dream Builders
By Oindrila Mukherjee. 2023
After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother…
and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur where her father now lives is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing—and no one—here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand just how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations. Written from the perspectives of ten different characters, Oindrila Mukherjee’s incisive debut novel explores class divisions, gender roles, and stories of survival within a society that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly Americanized. It’s a story about India today, and people impacted by globalization everywhere: a tale of ambition, longing, and bitter loss that asks what it really costs to try and build a dream.Chlorine
By Jade Song. 2023
In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a…
literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies… a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming. Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Creatures that called sailors to their doom. That dragged them down and drowned them. That feasted on their flesh. The creature that she’s always longed to become: the mermaid. Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.Romantic Comedy: A Novel
By Curtis Sittenfeld. 2023
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE&’S BOOK CLUB PICK • A comedy writer thinks she&’s sworn off love, until a dreamy…
pop star flips the script on all her assumptions—a &“smart, sophisticated, and fun&” (Oprah Daily) novel from the author of Eligible, Rodham, and Prep. &“Full of dazzling banter and sizzling chemistry.&”—People &“If you ever wanted a backstage pass to Saturday Night Live, this is the book for you.&”—Zibby Owens, Good Morning AmericaA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, USA Today, BuzzFeed, PopSugar, Harper&’s Bazaar, Real Simple, She Reads, New York PostSally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she&’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.But when Sally&’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who&’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called The Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week&’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn&’t a romantic comedy—it&’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her . . . right?With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Curtis Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.Death by a Thousand Cuts: Stories
By Shashi Bhat. 2024
From the Governor General&’s Award-shortlisted author of The Most Precious Substance on Earth comes a breathtaking and sharply funny collection about the everyday…
trials and impossible expectations that come with being a woman.What would have happened if she&’d met him at a different time in her life, when she was older, more confident, less lonely, and less afraid? She wonders not whether they would have stayed together, but whether she would have known to stay away. A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man&’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend&’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman&’s relationships with others and with herself.Journey by Moonlight (Pushkin Press Classics)
By Antal Szerb. 2000
An early-twentieth-century classic — the turbulent, dreamlike story of a businessman torn between middle-class respectability and sensational bohemia&“No one who…
has read it has failed to love it.&” — Nicholas LezardMihály and Erzsi are on honeymoon in Italy. Mihály has recently joined the respectable family firm in Budapest, but as his gaze passes over the mysterious back-alleys of Venice, memories of his bohemian past reawaken his old desire to wander.When bride and groom become separated at a provincial train station, Mihály embarks on a chaotic and bizarre journey that leads him finally to Rome, where he must reckon with both his past and his future. In this intoxicating and satirical masterpiece, Szerb takes us deep into the conflicting desires of marriage and shows how adulthood can reverberate endlessly with the ache of youth.Miss Morgan's Book Brigade: A Novel
By Janet Skeslien Charles. 1998
The New York Times and internationally bestselling author of the &“captivating, richly drawn&” (Woman&’s World) The Paris Library returns with…
a brilliant new novel based on the true story of Jessie Carson—the American librarian who changed the literary landscape of France.1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France. Founded by millionaire Anne Morgan, this group of international women help rebuild devastated French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen—children&’s libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears. 1987: When NYPL librarian and aspiring writer Wendy Peterson stumbles across a passing reference to Jessie Carson in the archives, she becomes consumed with learning her fate. In her obsessive research, she discovers that she and the elusive librarian have more in common than their work at New York&’s famed library, but she has no idea their paths will converge in surprising ways across time. Based on the extraordinary little-known history of the women who received the Croix de Guerre medal for courage under fire, Miss Morgan&’s Book Brigade is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, the power of literature, and ultimately the courage it takes to make a change.Way Back: The feel-good instant Sunday Times bestseller
By Sara Cox. 2024
*THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 2024*Here is the feel-good read you have been looking for... The big-hearted novel brimming with…
warmth, humour and heart. It's not too late to live the life you want...'Gorgeous! Warm and funny and brimming with tenderness and heart' GRAHAM NORTON'Full of Sara Cox's natural warmth and wit' PRIMA'Relatable, observant and funny' WOMAN & HOME Josie's life is fine. Absolutely, completely fine.Nice husband, brilliant best friend, a gorgeous kid at uni. The big house of her dreams on its leafy London street is a lifetime away from the Lancashire farm of her childhood. So what if her mother is tricky, and James isn't in love with Josie any more, and maybe she's not in love with him either? It's great to have time to herself now Chloe's flown the nest . . . isn't it? This is the life Josie never believed possible. The life she needed when her heart was breaking as a child, when her mum wasn't coping and Josie had to grow up too fast. So why this feeling, nibbling away at the edges of Josie's thoughts? The sense that she has lost something. That she has lost herself. If Josie is to truly live, she must now take back the reins and confront her future. And to find her way ahead, she needs to go back - way back.To the place where it all began . . ._______'A gorgeously written story of starting over, secrets, friendship... and going wild in the country' LUCY DIAMOND'A warm and moving dive into childhood secrets' JO BRAND'Excellent!' ALEX JONESThe Funeral Cryer: A Novel
By Wenyan Lu. 2024
&“The title character&’s wry, sad, and insightful inner voice is the star here. Her meditations on grief, death, love, and…
duty are full of poetry and longing. Perfect for literary-fiction fans, especially those who enjoyed other extraordinary novels about ordinary people.&” —Library Journal, starred reviewDebut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman&’s midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China, for fans of Yiyun Li and Julie Otsuka. The Funeral Cryer long ago accepted the mundane realities of her life: avoided by fellow villagers because of the stigma attached to her job and underappreciated by her husband, whose fecklessness has pushed the couple close to the brink of breakup. But just when things couldn't be bleaker, she takes a leap of faith—and in so doing, things start to take a surprising turn for the better. Dark, moving and wry, The Funeral Cryer is both an illuminating depiction of a &“left behind&” society—and proof that it's never too late to change your life.An Elegant Theory
By Noah Milligan. 2016
"A delightfully intelligent psychological thriller, Noah Milligan&’s debut novel is as ambitious and complex as its main character, Coulter Zahn,…
who aspires to nothing less than a complete understanding of the universe. An Elegant Theory intrigues the mind, thrills the senses, and keeps the reader engaged straight through to the surprising ending. An auspicious debut."—Rilla Askew, author, Kind of KinCoulter Zahn sees reality differently than others. Much like light can theoretically be in all places at once, Coulter sees multiple versions of his life. A promising PhD candidate at MIT, he and his young wife are nervously expecting their first child. When his dissertation comes under intense criticism, his estranged mother returns, and Sara tells him she's leaving him, Coulter&’s already delicate mental state becomes further fragmented.One evening, with his life and mental health unraveling, Coulter loses control, irreparably changing the course of the lives around him. But the very next morning, he catches a break in his research, discovering the true shape of the universe. Influenced by those around him and his own untrustworthy psyche, Coulter must decide whether to face the consequences of his actions or finish his research, perhaps making the greatest contribution to science since Einstein&’s theory of relativity.An existential psychological thriller, An Elegant Theory explores how the construction of memory and consciousness can shape motive, guilt, and identity through the lens of a modern-day mad-scientist motif."An Elegant Theory is a vibrant puzzle of a novel, an unstoppable force—full of twists, turns, and surprises while remaining fully grounded in real life to today. Surely, this is the start of a great literary career."—Jessica Anya Blau, author, The Trouble with Lexie"An excellent novel for discussion with a group or book club . . . . I believe Noah Milligan is an author to keep an eye on in the future."—booksandpals.blogspot.caNoah Milligan's other books:Five Hundred PoorInto Captivity They Will GoFive Hundred Poor
By Noah Milligan. 2018
"An honest glimpse at how the other half lives and how the other half dies that should inspire us to…
try harder."—Jared Yates Sexton, author of The People Are Going To Rise Like The Waters Upon Your ShoreFrom acclaimed author, Noah Milligan, comes a short story collection, Five Hundred Poor. The title comes from Adam Smith&’s The Wealth of Nations, &“Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.&”These are ten stories of those five hundred poor, the jaded, the disillusioned, and the disenfranchised."Noah Milligan writes about Oklahoma in such an uncanny, dark, compelling way."—Brandon Hobson, author of Where The Dead Sit TalkingNoah Milligan's other books:An Elegant TheoryInto Captivity They Will Go.Pickle's Progress: A Novel
By Marcia Butler. 2019
"The four main characters in Pickle&’s Progress seem more alive than most of the people we know in real life."—Richard…
RussoMarcia Butler&’s debut novel, Pickle&’s Progress, is a fierce, mordant New York story about the twisted path to love.Over the course of five weeks, identical twin brothers, one wife, a dog, and a bereaved young woman collide with each other to comical and sometimes horrifying effect. Everything is questioned and tested as they jockey for position and try to maintain the status quo. Love is the poison, the antidote, the devil and, ultimately, the hero.&“Pickle&’s Progress is a Weird — But Secretly Sweet — Journey.&”—nprOslo, Maine: A Novel
By Marcia Butler. 2021
"This book will break your heart and heal it." - E.J. Levy, author of The Cape Doctor A pregnant moose walks into…
a rural Maine town called Oslo, looking for food and a place to deliver her calf. Just as when strangers run into each other on the street, the movement of the moose determines the fate of three families in the town as they grapple with trauma, marriage, ambition, and their fraught relationship with the natural world. Meet Pierre Roy, a brilliant twelve-year-old, who loses his memory in an accident. Then Claude Roy, Pierre&’s blustery and proud fourth-generation Maine father who cannot, or will not, acknowledge the too-real and frightening fact of his son&’s injury. And his wife, Celine, a once-upon-a-time traditional housewife and mother who descends into pills as a way of coping. Enter Sandra and Jim Kimbrough, musicians and recent Maine transplants who scrape together a meager living as performers while shoring up the loose ends by attempting to live off the grid. Finally, the wealthy widow "from away," Edna Sibley, whose dependent adult grandson is addicted to 1980&’s Family Feud episodes. Their disparate backgrounds and views on life make for, at times, uneasy neighbors. But when Sandra begins to teach Pierre the violin, forces beyond their control converge. The boy discovers that through sound he can enter a world without pain from the past nor worry for the future. He becomes a preadolescent existentialist and invents an unconventional method to come to terms with his memory loss, all the while attempting to protect, and then forgive, those who&’ve failed him.Oslo, Maine is a character-driven novel exploring class and economic disparity. It inspects the strengths and limitations of seven average yet extraordinary people as they reckon with their considerable collective failure around Pierre&’s accident. Alliances unravel. Long held secrets are exposed. And throughout, the ever-present moose is the linchpin that drives this richly drawn story, filled with heartbreak and hope, to its unexpected conclusion."(T)he flawed but deeply relatable characters in Butler's second novel ... exude an authentic sense of humanity, making this a sure-fire recommendation for Fredrik Backman fans." —Carol Haggas, BooklistA seductive, imaginative, and utterly unique story; an astute and compassionate foray into the intersecting lives of characters who are both ordinary and exceptional, saintly and deeply flawed." —Karen Dionne, #1 internationally bestselling author of The Wicked SisterNo Call Too Small
By Oscar Martens. 2020
&“Martens&’ work would be impressive in any era, but it is particularly timely today. It is wonderful to come upon…
an author who faces into the horrific absurdities of modern life without flinching, a stylist who delivers his most powerful satiric points with laser sharp accuracy and lyrically beautiful language."—Vancouver Sun&“Haunting, darkly funny situations, captured in crisp, spare prose, will appeal to fans of George Saunders.&”—Publishers WeeklyBy the end of the day, a cop must choose between ethics and social death. A camp counsellor, stuck deep in the woods with a small group of boys, only has a few hours before the DTs kick in. Adult children scramble to get the best of what remains of their mother's estate, but funeral plans may be premature. Sandwiched between a depressed mother and a careless father, a young girl must help attract customers to the family business, no matter the cost.The stories in No Call Too Small represent micro-scale disaster tourism on a winding road that is long and dark. Driving too fast, weaving between flaming wrecks, and drifting through cliff-side curves, there's little choice but to hang on and meet whatever's over the rise head on.&“Marten&’s strong prose is a pleasure to read, with dark humour and lively storytelling that brings a quirky humanity to his characters.&”—Janie Chang, Globe and Mail bestselling author of Dragon Springs Road&“A beautifully crafted collection.&”—Marcia Butler, author of Pickle&’s ProgressThe Favor: A Novel
By Adele Griffin. 2023
From National Book Award finalist Adele Griffin, an insightful and warmhearted story of two very different women who make an unexpected…
connection when one decides to carry a baby for the other.At I'll Have Seconds, a high-end fairytale vintage dress shop in Manhattan, Nora Hammond loves nothing better than pairing a rare find with the perfect client.At home, Nora grapples with the bleaker reality of enormous debt, a tiny apartment, and ever-dwindling hope that she and her husband Jacob will have a family of their own.When socialite Evelyn Elliot charges into Nora's life, the women spark an immediate connection, and Nora is jettisoned into the heady whirl of New York's moneyed elite. As Evelyn's stylist and confidante, Nora needs to learn all new rules of engagement for the uber-wealthy. But it isn't until Evelyn decides her next cause is to carry a baby for Nora, that these rules— and this unlikely friendship—are tested.A contemporary story that celebrates alternative routes to family, The Favor is an incisive examination of what it means to long for a child and what relationships cost us—and what they're worth.The House of Broken Bricks: A Novel
By Fiona Williams. 2024
Every marriage has its seasons...It’s autumn when we meet Tess, but her relationship with Richard is in a deep, cold…
winter. A winter so harsh, their union may never see the bright light of spring.Tess is a Londoner whose relationship with Richard transports her from a Jamaican diaspora in the city to the English countryside, where predatory birds hover over fields, buses run twice a day, neighbors barter honey for cider, and no one looks like her.As Tess and Richard settle in, the dramatic arrival of their fraternal twins—one who presents as black and the other as white—recasts the family dynamic, stirring up complicated feelings and questions of belonging. Tess yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was, instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen where cooking Caribbean food becomes her sole comfort. And Richard obsesses over getting his crops planted rather than deal with the conversation he cannot bear to have.In Fiona Williams' quartet of unforgettable, alternating perspectives, secrets and vines clamber over the house’s broken red bricks, and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, Sonny knows that something is stirring. . . . As the seasons change and the cracks let in more light, the family might just be able to start to heal.888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers: A Novel
By Abraham Chang. 2024
Goodreads Editor's Pick • Publishers Weekly Author to Watch"Packed with pop culture.... A beautifully tender and funny examination of love,…
of identity, of making your way in a world that is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.” —Kevin Wilson, bestselling author of Nothing to See HereLove is a numbers game...Young Wang has received plenty of wisdom from his beloved uncle: don’t take life too seriously, get out on the road when you can, and everyone gets just seven great loves in their life—so don’t blow it. This last one sticks with Young as he is an obsessive cataloger of his life: movies watched, favorite albums . . . all filtered through Chinese numerology and superstition. He finds meaning in almost everything, for which his two best friends endlessly tease him. But then, at the end of 1995, when Young is at New York University, he meets Erena. She’s brilliant, charismatic, quick-witted, and crassly funny. They fall in love and, for Young, it feels so real that he’s thrilled and terrified. As Young and Erena’s relationship blossoms, we get flashbacks to Young’s first five loves. That means Erena is “number six.” Was his uncle wrong—is she the one and only? Or are they fated for failure to make room for Young’s final, seventh love?A love letter to Western pop culture, Eastern traditions, and being a first-generation New Yorker, Abraham Chang’s dazzling debut reminds us that luck only gets us so far when it comes to matters of the heart.Thorn Tree: A Novel
By Max Ludington. 2024
"Terrifically vivid. . . stirring." - New York Times A beautifully wrought novel on the aftershocks of the heady but…
dangerous late 1960s and the relationship between trauma and the creative impulse. Now in his late-sixties, Daniel lives in quiet anonymity in a converted guest cottage in the Hollywood Hills. A legendary artist, he’s known for one seminal work—Thorn Tree—a hulking, welded, scrap metal sculpture that he built in the Mojave desert in the 1970s. The work emerged from tragedy, but building it kept Daniel alive and catapulted him to brief, reluctant fame in the art world. Daniel is neighbors with Celia, a charismatic but fragile actress. She too experienced youthful fame, hers in a popular television series, but saw her life nearly collapse after a series of bad decisions. Now, a new movie with a notorious director might reignite her career. A single mother, Celia leaves her young son Dean for weeks at a time with her father, Jack, who stays at her house while she’s on location. Jack and Daniel strike up a tentative friendship as Dean takes to visiting Daniel’s cottage--but something about Jack seems off. Discomfiting, strangely intimate, with flashes of anger balanced by an almost philosophical bent, Jack is not the harmless grandparent he pretends to be. Weaving the idealism and the darkness of the late 1960s, the glossy surfaces of Los Angeles celebrity today, and thrumming with the sound of the Grateful Dead, the mania of Charles Manson and other cults, and the secrets that both Jack and Daniel have harbored for fifty years, Thorn Tree by Max Ludington is an utterly-compelling novel.On the Tobacco Coast: A Novel (The Novels of Mason’s Retreat #4)
By Christopher Tilghman. 2024
The culmination of Christopher Tilghman's great Chesapeake saga, a story spanning four centuries of an American family.It is the Fourth…
of July 2019, and the Mason family is gathering at their historic Chesapeake farm, Mason’s Retreat. It isn’t everyone’s favorite party, but Harry Mason has once again goaded his wife, Kate, and their children into hosting a celebratory dinner. Their oldest, Rosalie, is having trouble with her marriage; the youngest, Ethan, is in the throes of a fitful first relationship. In between, Eleanor despairs over her stalled novel, a fictionalized memoir of the wife of the first Mason settler who landed there in 1659.Kate, recovering from a second round of chemotherapy, is at the center of this ritual of remembrance. Tart and candid, she asks her husband, “What crime against humanity did your family not commit on that land?” And so it is more or less inevitable that when the clan, joined by a cast of neighbors and cousins from France, sits down for dinner, the question of how they should think and feel about their past comes to the fore.Told with irony and deep insight, On the Tobacco Coast is Christopher Tilghman’s concluding meditation on the themes of his novels about this ancestral monument: the pride and shame in its long history, the persistence of family stories, race and privilege, the enigmas and customs of regions. It is a reflects on the state of America today, with its battles with its own history and efforts to reckon with the wrongs of the past while looking forward to an uncertain, more just future.The Damnation of Theron Ware: Or, Illumination (Belt Revivals)
By Harold Frederic. 2012
First published in 1896, this unsung masterpiece of American literature details the rise and fall of a Methodist minister in…
upstate New York. Part of Belt's Revivals series and with a new introduction by Ruth Graham. Th